


Love in New York

by blacklele



Category: Glee
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Love, M/M, NYADA, New York, What if?, commedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 01:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5397455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacklele/pseuds/blacklele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ah, there he is!” Adam said, turning to one side. “Kurt, he’s…”<br/>“Sebastian.” Kurt’s heart sank. He was in apnea.<br/>“Kurt,” Sebastian grinned.<br/>Kurt Hummel, NYADA sends you your personal greeting committee.<br/><i>Welcome to the Jungle, baby.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Love in New York](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/162179) by La Viola Moody. 



> blacklele: As it's written above, this is a translation. Basically, this sweetheart (Nico) asked me to translate her fanfictions in English (that's why if you find mistakes, it's because of my native language). I loved her for asking me to, and I loooove her for starting a new Kurtbastian - in italian... so basically support her (and me) to see that one translated too!  
> I'll send her your messages and your bookmarks and kudos, everything! I love this fic so much, believe me... it's worth it.  
> PLEASE READ: I do not own this fanfiction, nor the idea. I own the translation only. I'll post my notes, sometime, but mostly I'll post her notes. 
> 
> La Viola Moody: I got convinced, so here I am. My first long Kurtbastian. It's not all my own work, the input came watching this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkbemsn5pnI) so basically the prompt and the general idea is born from this wonderful video with whom I fell in love. There are people who supported me. Silvia (my sweet little beta, poor babe, she doesn't know the trouble she put herself into. I love u, sweetheart), Delilah (the drug dealer of the video, it's her fault I watched it) and Vale, who endured me in these days, if this is not love, love you babe. I do not forget all the Italian Kurtbastian fandom (Pinguste) who, for some strange reason, see good in me, as a person and a writer. I adore you. See below for more notes.

Prologue

Track#1 [We’re Golden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEhutIEUq8k)  
Artist: Mika

 

_Crack._

_This is the sound of a breaking heart. And it does break, leaving its too light and sick pieces to the wind._

_“Kurt, I cheated on you.”_

_The words fill the air. Kurt feels faint. Those big hazel eyes become his worst nightmare and Central Park becomes the perfect place for a homicide. The murder of the feeling that bonds him to Blaine. Lights become dim and less defined. Damned tears. Damned feelings. Damned heart._

_“Is it Sebastian?”_

_Kurt feels cold, his sight is blurred and he’s sniffing._

_But should you give weight to this when who you thought to be the love of your life – the same with whom you were running through the school’s corridors and made you live teenage dreams and loved you despite the excessive layers of clothing? – says that he preferred another guy to you?*_

_Kurt wants to scream with all his voice. Or, if he hadn’t a too cumbersome conscience, perhaps he would punch Blaine multiple times. He wonders if the physical pain is comparable to its emotional malaise. Kurt hates circumstance phrases, those phrases that taste bitter and cause disgust as soon as you hear them. But the main harm is dealt from the lips that pronounce those words. Kurt remembers that when he used to kiss them – no harm existing – they were soft. Now they probably taste of sandpaper: how much blood would flow if he tries to kiss him?_

_“Kurt,” Blaine says loud._

_“Kurt,” but Kurt doesn’t want to listen._

“Kurt!”

The called boy suddenly opened his eyes. Well, Rachel Berry in the early morning wasn’t a good vision.

“Mh...”

No, he didn’t want to get up. At the moment, with those nightmarish aftermaths, the bed seemed the only place in the world he would’ve wanted to stay. Until Rachel found appropriate to raise his covers and expose him.

“Rise and shine!”

“Rachel, I want you to know that I hate you!”

She threw herself on him like a dead weight and hugged him tightly.

Ultimately, Kurt turned out to be unwilling to displays of affection and in that chaos made of repressed and removed emotion, his best friend was in between. She was with Brody now – Finn seemed to be a faded memory, judging from the noises coming from her bedroom when the boy stayed the night, and Kurt was pretty sure that they weren’t moving the furniture in the middle of the night. She was going to NYADA... basically she had found her balance in New York.

On the other hand he was in a limbo. His dream was half realized. He worked for Vogue.com, nothing wrong or strange, but he still felt incomplete. Because working for a magazine – although famous – didn’t get you to ride the Broadway stage.

He wanted to sing. Doing it in the shower didn’t count, bubbles are not valid audience – and Rachel knocking hard on the door warning him loudly to move his ass wasn’t an objective judge.

“Rach,” he said with difficulty, under the weight of the girl, “maybe Brody likes having you on top, but on me your weight is too much.”

“Kurt Hummel!” She pinched his cheek, as her cheeks became read. “I forbid you to make comments about my sexual life!”

Rachel was still laying on him, not caring about his necessity to breathe.

“Uh, you’re right!” He began, managing to free his hand and move them. “Please! More! Yes! Deeper!” he mimicked.

It was only then that she got up, indignantly, crossing her arms on her breasts. “I didn’t think that abstinence from sex would’ve brought you to voyeurism! Since when do you listen to what me and Brody do?”

“Since it’s impossible not to do so, the walls are made of cardboard!” His voice was muffled, because he was hiding his face under the pillow.

“Hummel! This is war!”

Poor Kurt, if only he hadn’t the pillow upon his face, he would’ve avoided the tragedy that was about to happen. Excruciating pain hit him straight in the groin and made him short of breath, more than the pillow still squeezing his face. He began to wave, trying to gain his friend’s attention, who later understood that she was in danger of losing her best friend. And the one who paid half of the rent.

“Kurt?” she called, when her friend stopped moving. “Oh my god!”

She moved the pillow, finally making Kurt breathe, his face of a purplish colour. Rachel began hitting him slightly on the cheeks and gave him mouth-to-mouth, until he pushed her across the bed.

“Rachel, what the heck are you doing?!”

Both had their eyes wide open, and Kurt felt a sense of nausea due perhaps to the pain experienced before. No, without a doubt it was for the kiss.

“What were you thinking?” he shouted, his voice an octave higher, in spite of the rumours on the protection that singers must reserve their voice. “I wanted to help! For what it’s worth now! And it’s not a homophobic comment, my dads are gay,**” Rachel snapped, getting hastily out of bed and running to the door, escaping from him.

That day didn’t start off right. He had had a nightmare – the same since months, which wasn’t much like an nightmare – he had kissed Rachel Berry (he didn’t care that it was to save his life, even if he had almost lost his ... you know).

Okay, he needed the bathroom.

***

_Vogue.com_

A huge building. Offices all meticulously placed even in their mess, filled with people branded till their underwear, looking at you from the top down, wrinkling their nose at everything. All that shine with sequins and spangles, the frenetic bustle of people, the heavy smell of perfume mingling with another perfume, and again with another. Models wandering around for various services, bundled up in their dressing gowns.

God, Kurt loved everything about that world. He felt like a needle used to mend silk panties of a model. But, hey, those still were silk panties and would’ve ended on the pages of a best-selling magazine in the world. Even a needle can make a difference when before a service a dress tears itself.

However, he would’ve been a fashion needle. Always and forever.

At that moment he was sitting outside the editors, waiting for Isabelle Wright. In that world full of sharks, hungry and willing to tear your hand with bites just to have the last couple of Jimmy Cho, she was like Nemo***. Years spent on working had somehow marked her, you could notice it from the expression lines around her eyes and – even if lighter – around the lips. But that was what fascinated him about her, she didn’t hide behind a scalpel but made her being a kind of flag. And she was beautiful when she smiled, she had a motherly and affable way to interact with people.

“Kurt!” someone drew his attention from the door of the office. As if she had evoked her, Isabelle made her appearance, perfect and with the innate grace that distinguished her in Kurt’s eyes since the time of their first meeting, in the first interview.

He approached the office, smiling friendly, knowing that she would’ve smiled back. And she did. All this made him feel at ease in her company.

“Kurt,” she began, “you have to help me.” She sighed heavily, leaning against the desk.

“Sure, if I can...”

After all, it wasn’t the first time that he rushed to rescue Isabelle. It had happened before, when he had started the stage, why not now, then, that was part of the well-oiled gear?

Isabelle showed him what must have been the ideas proposed by the staff. How could he define something like that? A bit overrated? They are to be reviewed, but they are good?

“Well, I...”

_They suck?_

“Don’t lie, please!” she said.

He swallowed visibly, trying to find the right words. “Isabelle,” he began, “I remember your first numbers as chief editor. They were full of wit, charm, they were fresh! Always new and never banal! I think that...”

“This is all gone!” She waved her hands in the hair. “Puff!” Closing her fists, making rattle in the air the lace decorated sleeve of the dress.

There. In these moments, Isabelle was the kind soul of the fashion world. If she would’ve been Nemo, he would’ve wanted to be the Dory searching for her. Those light eyes were too sincere for a treacherous world like that of fashion publishing. But not only she was afloat in that ocean, but she also swam perfectly.

“I still believe that you have great ideas,” said Kurt serious.

“Kurt, look at you,” Isabelle whispered, looking at him. “You are young, full of inspirations. And if I understood properly, NYADA will be just another dream you’re running after, not because you change whim with the same frequency with which a girl changes her clothes, but because you devour everything around you. The world is too small for Kurt Hummel. So, son, you don’t need me to tell you not to fossilize yourself about Vogue.com because you, under that lovely clump perfectly combed,” Kurt automatically looked up to the sky, “you need to realize so many ideas! At your age I was so different, you’re better.”

“But you can still do something!” Kurt spoke again. “It’s not like you finished the ideas, you just have to figure out what direction you want them to take. You want them to take control? Let them do it, most of the time instinct is the best answer.”

“You see why I’ve chosen you? You do what you want, you fight till the end.”

“You can do it too, and, if you need it, I’ll give you a hand.”

Isabelle put her hand on Kurt’s shoulder, stooping to look him in his eyes.

“Now go home, rest. Tomorrow we have lot of work to do.”

***

_“Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”_

Oh God, how cool and handsome was Patrick Swayze?

Yes, okay, Kurt was watching – for the millionth time – ‘Dirty Dancing’ out of pure sadism, drowning his sorrows in caramel popcorn, and his hormones were dancing the Macarena in front of Swayze. At least he was drinking Diet Coke.****

He was curled up – as long as his height allowed him to – in a corner of the sofa, wearing a Finn’s old Giants sweatshirt (he wondered if he had noticed that it was gone from his wardrobe) with fleece pants and his face smeared with a cucumber cream. That was the reason he found himself crying. Since he was no longer with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, every time he felt depressed he watched it. That was the final blow.

He envied Jennifer Grey. Also, because he had two things that she could no longer have: the youth and the money spent by the surgeon.

Suddenly he heard the front door opening. Rachel appeared white as a sheet, pale and trembling, one step away from bursting into tears.

“Rachel, what happened?”

She handed him an envelope, she couldn’t say a word. She had started crying too. When he read the sender, he had to sit down.

NYADA.

“Please, open it,” she whimpered.

He didn’t care of manners. Kurt tore the envelope and opened it. He didn’t care about anything, he jumped straight to the point he wanted to read, where he knew he could find results.

“I got in.”

Kurt Hummel, at that moment, knew one thing for sure: sometimes losing battles doesn’t always mean losing war, that’s why you should never lay down your arms.

 

* Two quotes that marked the end of Klaine’s history (Yes, I am a Kleiner too).

** To quote miss Berry is required.

*** I love Nemo and yes, I’m a bit (much) Dory “P.SHERMAN, 42 WALLABE WAY, SIDNEY!”

**** This scene is from 1x01 “New Girl”, show that at the beginning I really liked. The protagonist is left by her boyfriend and gets to watch "Dirty Dancing" repeatedly. Obviously, the phrase “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” it’s a quote from the film.


	2. Chapter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ: I do not own this fanfiction, nor the idea. I own the translation only. I'll post my notes, sometime, but mostly I'll post her notes.

Chapter 1  
Track#2 [Hall Of Fame](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk48xRzuNvA)  
Artist: The Script feat. Will.i.am

Kurt needed to sit down. He couldn’t, though, because he fell on his knees against the wooden floor. His cheeks were getting wet with tears. Rachel was hugging him tightly.

“You did it,” she was saying repeatedly, caressing his hair.

Kurt continued crying. Sometimes the weight of our dreams disrupts us, especially when they come true. Then there is fear, what ifs, buts and maybes. Some people are good, so they build a thick wall between them and their heart. But Kurt wasn’t good. He, who lived on dreams and fought to achieve them, at that moment was falling down. Those tears – copious, rebel and awaited – were the metaphor of his dream, because a dream come true causes more damage than a broken dream.

“What if I fail?” he sobbed, “if they throw me out after the first day?”

Rachel tightened him to her chest.

“Don’t be silly. You’re a _diva_. You have Tina Turner’s heart and Lady Gaga’s mind. You have ‘Wicked’ in your blood and you smell of the greatest theaters. Kurt Hummel, you have art in your eyes, in your heart and in your mind.”

“Rachel, I’m scared.” He sniffled as he clung to her.

Rachel took his hand, breaking their hug, and brought him in front of the large window facing the city, lit for the night.

“Do you see this?” She pointed all the city, which extended beneath them into a mixture of sounds, lights, perfumes and people. “ _One day all this will be yours.*_ ”

Kurt laughed, sniffling again, wiping away the tears with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“I’ve already heard this, Mufasa!”

Rachel smiled widely and put her hands on his shoulders.

“Kurt, I know how much you’re talented. Now you have to understand that the world needs to know your voice.”

Kurt managed to smile, being calmer. “You’re right! NYADA needs Kurt Hummel!”

“The world needs divas!” said Rachel, serious.

“And you can’t stand this pressure all alone,” he made fun of her.

In the end this is what people need in their life: a partner, an accomplice. Someone who stays close to you even when you’re unbearable, when you finish your box of Kleenex, when the last item of clothing you bought doesn’t satisfy you anymore. But even when the only accessory that looks good on you is a smile. Because we know that tears aren’t trendy, nor with the sun, nor with rain.

“ _And we’re gonna rule the school!_ **”

A little note to Kurt: never excite Rachel Berry.

Rachel suddenly became serious and turned to his friend.

“Kurt, you must make me a promise.” He widened his eyes with astonishment. “Whatever makes you doubt yourself and makes it hard for you, you’ll come to me. I’ll be there, come what may.”

This was the Rachel that Kurt was in love with, metaphorically speaking. Despite the ambition and the moments of self-congratulation, behind those big brown eyes, clouded by too much makeup, she was there, the little Rachel Barbra Berry, with sincere eyes and a childish smile. And a good, huge heart.

Kurt looked outside the window. He wanted to be a part of that world, of those lights and sounds and smells. He wanted to be all those things.

The time to cry and ask useless questions was over. That was the moment to pull up his sleeves, grit his teeth and fight for what he believed in: his voice.

Kurt hadn’t a shining armor, he didn’t believe anymore in Prince Charming and he knew that the world out there could be really bastard. But he knew that singing he would’ve found the strength to fight. He had found it when he was in High School, he would’ve continued doing it at NYADA. Having a dream, when you have who you love at your side, is still difficult, but less impossible. Because you have one person who grits his teeth with you, cries with you and rejoice with you, and strengthens his grip when you want to give up.

Rachel was resting her head on his shoulder, using it as a pillow – adorable little Streisand (dwarf) – he knew that that was a signal: she would’ve always been there for him.

When Kurt was in Lima, preparing his suitcase, he didn’t really know what to put in it. Not because it was too small, but because of his too big dreams – that he treasured as a hatter, and a little in his heart too – because he didn’t know what to bring, he didn’t know how long he would’ve stayed in the Big Apple. So he had acted on instinct and had taken with him his music. All the song books he had.

And the picture of his mother.

*

“Dad, I got in.”

Kurt was trembling as he had said it. He was still afraid that it wasn’t true.

On the other side there was silence. Then a crying, broken by sobs. There was only one other time his father had cried, and it was at his mother’s funeral – and it had been a solitary tear streaming down his bearded cheek. It wasn’t because Burt thought that crying wasn’t manly, but because crying would’ve not brought back his wife, the same woman who had died smiling, clutching at her side the men of her life.

“Kurt, you know - … I think she’s proud of you too,” Burt whispered.

“She’s probably laughing at you now,” Kurt said, smiling softly.

Burt sniffled. “When will you start your lessons?”

“On Monday.” Kurt sat on the ground, crossing his legs like an Indian.

“Show them what you’re worth of, kid.”

Because for Burt he was still a kid, he was not different, he didn’t care that, when he was little, while his peers watched football his son used to read fashion magazines.

“I hug you from here,” said Kurt.

“And how strong are you hugging me?” asked Burt.

“Strong enough to make you short of breath.”

The relationship father/son seemed to be always delicate. There weren’t denied hugs, nor unsaid words. But sometimes clarity – typical of Kurt – and the impetuosity – of Burt – led to some clashes. Yet it all disappeared when Burt came back to Kurt, who usually let Lady Gaga’s voice come out of his stereo, too loud, in his room, with a cup of hot chocolate and marshmallow – Kurt always scolded him, because of the too many calories, but then he drank it anyway (even though the next day he would’ve had to do more exercise bike).

It was their way of making peace.

“How much love there is in a hot chocolate?” Kurt used to ask to his mom. “As many as the grains of the powder that we put in our milk,” she used to say.

At that point a seven-years-old Kurt understood that his mom and dad really loved him. And as years passed by he had grown up with a conviction: every time he sang, his mother sang with him. He felt it in every note, in every scale and in every lyric. Kurt remembered his mother as a dream, but he still remembered her voice, perfectly imprinted in his mind.

“Make yourself a hot chocolate, relax.”

“I will,” said a cheerful Kurt.

“Promise?”

“I swear.”

They hung up simultaneously and Kurt lay on the ground, staring at the ceiling. As a child he liked to look the small cracks in it. Details – even the smallest – made him think that every one of those small cracks could be in his heart. That’s why there was chocolate: to cure the cracks of his heart.

*

A scream ripped through the silent apartment.

“Kurt!”

Rachel ran to the bathroom, thinking that something serious had happened to her friend. When she arrived, he found the boy standing in front of the mirror, gasping, pointing to his reflected face.

“What the hell is going on?!”

“A…”

“A – a what?” she shouted, panicking.

“A…”

“A what, goddamn it?” she snapped, angrily.

“A pimple!” he exhaled in one breath, frantically waving his arms, widening his eyes with terror. “I’ll have to go on my first day at NYADA with a pimple that looks like a Mars’ crater! NASA will want to know if there’s life on my face!”

“You, you hysterical woman!” Rachel pointed at Kurt’s chest. “You made me believe that something serious happened to you! I hate you!”

“But this _is_ serious!” he barked, his voice rising.

So Kurt was late, still in his dressing gown, his face smeared with banana cream, fighting against a giant pimple. And, just to make it worst, out of nowhere, Brody appeared, wearing only a pair of blue boxers. Can you consider dressed a guy that is only wearing boxers?

“What cream are you wearing?” Brody asked curiously.

Kurt frowned his eyebrows. “Banana, why?”

With his index, Brody reached his cheek and took a bit of cream. “Mh, good! I’m a little hungry,” he said, leaving the bathroom with a smile, watched by the appalled gazes of the other two.

Kurt still had doubts about that guy. But having certainties makes the skin crawl. He was strange, not as much as Brittany but as much as Lord Tubbington – a cat that smoked and was part of a gang.

Rachel seemed resigned: she lived with an Abercrombie model and a walking perfumery with the alarm always set. She didn’t know who was worse.  

*

NYADA was like High School, nothing more and nothing less. Once he crossed the threshold of the school, he surprisingly found himself in an extended version of High School. There were groups everywhere. Dancers’ groups – rebels on toes, singers – egocentrics living in a group so they wouldn’t have to die alone, stage designers – always walking smeared with paint…

Groups. It all came down to groups. Kurt was haunted by them. And the worst thing was that even at NYADA he risked falling into oblivion if he ended up in the wrong one.

Something caught his eyes. Adam’s Apples.

NYADA had a Glee Club? And, a million dollars question, how was it seen in the school? Would’ve it led him to a certain social death or would’ve it given him the place he deserved in school after years of being slushed?

Too many questions.

He was looking around, a bit like Bambi after his mother’s death.

“Hey!” somebody tried to gain his attention. It was a blond boy with spectacular green eyes, watching him, smiling brightly.

“That,” he said, pointing to the poster, “is me, and those are my apples.”

Kurt smiled, holding out his hand. “Pleasure, Adam of the apples. I’m Kurt, Kurt Hummel.”

His smile was so adorable. Small dimples formed on the sides of his mouth. Stop, Hummel, contain yourself. He couldn’t fall again in the hurricane of pain that tasted of marshmallows, tears that tasted of pop corn and marathons of ‘90210’ just to watch Grant Gustin appear in all his coolness.***

“You know, I’m sure you’ll fit in if you join us. There’s Lucas, who’s a marvelous body percussionist, Sebastian, a talented soloist,” Kurt, being a victim of those dimples, didn’t give weight to the number of names, “and then there’s Matthew, the contralto.”

Then he realized. A name. One name can make you collapse to the ground and make you pass away.

Sebastian. How many Sebastians could exist in the State of New York that were enrolled in the same school? Fate could not have been that bastard. Fate could not have done that to him.

“Ah, there he is!” Adam said, turning to one side. “Kurt, he’s…”

“Sebastian.” Kurt’s heart sank. He was in apnea.

“Kurt,” Sebastian grinned.

Kurt Hummel, NYADA sends you your personal greeting committee.

_Welcome to the Jungle, baby.****_

 

*quote from ‘The Lion King’, one of my favorites cartoons.

**quote from ‘Grease’, of the Pink Ladies.

***sorry, I had to do that ahahah!

****quote from Guns ‘n’ Roses’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> La Viola Moody: A little gift for you. And for me. Yes, from next chapter Sebastian will be all ours. I took the inspiration from the 'Diva' episode, 'cause for me Kurt is a real Diva with a capital D. Hope you like the character.  
> blacklele: So this is the first chapter of this marvellous story. Thanks to those who read it, kudossed(?) it and put it in their bookmarks, it means a lot to me and to the original writer. More Sebastian coming! ;)

**Author's Note:**

> La Viola Moody: *Hides in her corner and shakes a white flag.*  
> Please don't hate me! So- first thing to say, Kurt and Blaine have already broke up. Kurt lives in New York and works for Vogue. It's true, we don't see Sebastian here, but do not worry... we'll see him soon! *Evil laugh.* (I know that there's the video but try not to think about it and act surprised). However, every chapter will have a song. I chose Mika for the first one... because it gave the idea. What else? Nothing... 
> 
> blacklele: Yes! I made it! I'm so happy, see you the next chapter babies!


End file.
